


I Wanna Feel Your Heart Beat (For Me Instead)

by 0justlisten0



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Implied Eleanor Calder/Louis Tomlinson, M/M, Past Harry Styles/Louis Tomlinson, and forgot about it, and i've just sort of fallen off the bandwagon, don't, i seriously have no idea what i'm doing anymore, i started this like two years ago, mentioned zayn/harry, pay no attention to the minor details, really - Freeform, so i'm not hip to what those beautiful boys are doing right now, which means my timeline in this is probably jacked
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-31
Updated: 2015-01-31
Packaged: 2018-03-09 20:17:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,461
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3262997
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/0justlisten0/pseuds/0justlisten0
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>It started off slowly, timidly, because Louis had never been with another guy – had never even considered it before Harry – and Harry was only sixteen, not yet ready for anything serious with anyone, not with so much media attention anyway.</i>
</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>  <i>It began with interlocked fingers every time they were alone, shy looks and tender smiles passed between them. They hadn’t even attempted hiding their burgeoning relationship from the other lads – hadn’t even considered it, quite honestly.</i></p><p>  <i>Kissing Harry, Louis had found, was like being lost in a dream – he didn’t know where he was or how he had gotten there, but as their lips connected, in that single moment, neither of those things mattered and he never wanted to find his way out.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	I Wanna Feel Your Heart Beat (For Me Instead)

**Author's Note:**

> This is a fic I started over two years ago, back when I had my obsession with the 1D boys going all-out and full-force. Since then, I admit, I have fallen from the bandwagon, but I'm still here, hopefully with something you loves will enjoy. Truly though, I remember wanting to go in an entirely different direction when I began this, but the plot points I wanted have blurred with the last two years, so I made this instead.
> 
> Also, I had a much better ending written out, much more detail included, etc, but _motherfucking Microsoft Word_ decided to shut down on me. Add to that incident that the bastard didn't fucking autosave the way it should have and I lost the entirety of everything I had written past Eleanor's appearance, well. I was not a happy camper. So if things past that point seem a little disjointed, I apologize.
> 
> Anyway, I really hope you guys like it! I'm trying to get back in the writing groove I had a year or so ago.
> 
> Title is a line from "I Can't Lie" by Maroon 5.
> 
> Aaand, I had to delete my old blog, 0justlisten0, on tumblr, but I made a [shiny](http://sugarspiceandpurespite.tumblr.com/) new one!

***

 

Louis had loved Harry – he truly did. He _does_ , but…

*

In the band’s earliest days, he and Harry were the closest of them all; it was never a secret, never a problem. No one had an issue with their closeness – crazy rumors were abound, of course, but they were always laughed off, never taken too seriously because they didn't have an image to protect. The band had nothing, really, but a great opportunity and each other.

Louis misses those days, sometimes yearns for them to return so that he can have Harry again.

It’s difficult to accept that it will never happen.

*

It began the night of the X Factor finals.

They were all down and out from their loss, upset that they had let Simon – their mentor, the man who had taken it upon himself to bring them all together – and their families down. Simon had rented out a ridiculously expensive – because he wouldn’t be Simon if he didn’t show off every once in a while – little restaurant for them and their families, told them he was proud despite them not winning because he was going to kick-start their musical careers anyway and, “Yes, boys, I understand you’re all excited, but do you really have to pounce on me every time I deliver good news?”

They had all laughed, teary-eyed and relieved that they were still going to be able to achieve their dreams of being pop stars, hugging and clapping each other on their backs, and Harry had looked at Louis – all of them, really, but he had focused on Louis – and said, breathlessly, how utterly happy he was now that he knew they were going to stick together. They had each silently agreed, Louis thinks, because, yes, they had said they would, but they all had their own lives, lives that didn’t involve the others, and if they didn’t have music to bring them together, they probably would have just drifted apart, uninterested of being reminded of their near-success every day.

Harry had sat between Anne and Louis, speaking with his mother in that slow pace of his, his eyes bright with joy. Louis had been caught between conversations – switching from Niall and Zayn’s debate of which Nando’s dish is better, contributing with his own non-biased opinions since he wasn’t obsessed with the place like they were, and eavesdropping on Liam’s side of a phone call with Danielle – when he felt Harry’s fingers twine with his.

He had quickly looked over, surprised and wondering. Harry had quieted, head bowed a little and turned in Louis’ direction. Louis had swallowed hard, blinking rapidly, nervous that Harry was just being _Harry_ , that it wouldn’t mean what Louis wanted it to mean, but Harry, with his emerald-speckled eyes and his baby-face so vulnerable and so heartbreakingly uncertain, had offered up a timid little smile, his hand squeezing Louis’. Louis relaxed, flashing his own smile – a bright, toothy grin – and squeezed back.

That night was the true beginning of Larry Stylinson.

*

It started off slowly, timidly, because Louis had never been with another guy – had never even considered it before Harry – and Harry was only sixteen, not yet ready for anything serious with anyone, not with so much media attention anyway.

It began with interlocked fingers every time they were alone, shy looks and tender smiles passed between them. They hadn’t even attempted hiding their burgeoning relationship from the other lads – hadn’t even considered it, quite honestly.

Kissing Harry, Louis had found, was like being lost in a dream – he didn’t know where he was or how he had gotten there, but as their lips connected, in that single moment, neither of those things mattered and he never wanted to find his way out.

*

By the time they began their _Up All Night_ tour ( _we’re_ touring _, Lou, can you even believe it?!_ ), he and Harry were as close as two people could possibly be. Sexual experimentations and whispered nothings, loving gestures and shared secrets were staples of their everyday lives at that point. Larry Stylinson, their unofficial sixth bandmate, was in full-effect.

Which, as he looks back on it now, is probably why everything began falling apart.

*

Twitter fans are vicious, they discover – cruel threats and hurtful phrases thrown at them from every corner of the world. Louis could have cared less, their views on his personal life – secret though it may officially be – a nonissue with him. Harry though… Louis hated seeing him cry over pointless words from meaningless, faceless people (he still does). And so he approached Simon, requested something be done about it; that they ‘come out’ or that the band, as a whole, stand together and delete any and all social media in a stand against bullying, especially towards their own.

Their PR team countered with the girl – a pretty one, he must say, young and in uni, barely even star-struck by them at all – Eleanor.

Louis had refused at first, unwilling to pretend that what he and Harry had was nothing, all for the sake of a few homophobic jerks behind a computer screen, tapping away like what they had to say even _mattered_. Simon eventually talked him down, a strong hand heavy on Louis’ shoulder as Harry told him it was probably for the best, for a while, that they not rock the shoddily-built boat they were sailing on. They had the boys to think of and destroying their careers, their livelihoods, was not worth anything in the world. The boys had all told them, encouraging smiles on their faces, that they would accept whatever decision they decided was best for them, for their futures. Louis had never believed anything more.

Louis remembers how he had felt, how _sure_ he had been, that the first outing with Eleanor was a good decision as the heat died from he and Harry’s relationship to he and Eleanor’s. He remembers feeling positive that everything would be fine eventually, that he and Harry would get their happy ending the way everyone else always did.

Now he cannot, for the life of him or anyone else, remember why he felt that way.

*

Their relationship is strained, at best, by the time Eleanor is asked to attend their concerts, local and not, when she has a break from uni. Louis knew, he understood that Harry was put out over their lack of time spent together throughout the past few months, and that he was upset over the way Louis had to spend nearly every waking moment with Eleanor to keep the public’s attention on them. He _didn’t_ understand Harry’s constant stream of questions, the ‘why do you have to be all _on_ her?’ Louis knows, now, that Harry hadn’t meant it the way it sounded, wasn’t trying to be rude or sound like a scorned lover, but _then_ , in that moment, Louis had snapped at him, had shouted ‘because it’s what you fucking wanted, Harry,’ before storming off, slamming the door of their connecting hotel rooms shut loudly behind him; the silence that followed it was nearly deafening as Harry probably curled up in his bed, defeated and upset.

Louis still kicks himself for not being the bigger person (not that he ever could be, not in any way, compared to Harry) and crawling back to him, pleading for his forgiveness.

*

Eleanor was such a lovely person ( _is_ , Louis reminds himself, she _is_ a lovely person). They have so much in common, so much more than they could have guessed. She’s truly a beautiful person, inside and out.

Louis cannot bring himself to regret coming to love her. He can’t hate himself for that.

(He hates himself for breaking Harry’s heart in the process.)

*

It’s difficult to watch Harry with anyone else – even now, when what they had has been over (decimated, _annihilated_ , by Louis’ infidelity) for years: Taylor, Cara, Grimmy (even though Harry insists that things between them are nothing but platonic, that Nick and he just enjoy each other’s presence, exchanging humorous anecdotes of encounters with fans over the years).

It’s so much more difficult though, he realizes, to see Harry with someone Louis could never hate.

Zayn is nothing like Louis; they have their similarities, yes, but where Louis is loud and crass and the center of attention, Zayn is silent and poetic and content to be in the background until he decides otherwise. He’s nothing at all like Louis.

And, in that, he’s exactly what Harry needs, his perfect match.

*

Louis had loved Harry – he truly did. He _does_ , but… He had fucked up somewhere along the way, in so many places, and he can never take those mistakes back. And he loves Harry enough to leave them in the past – Harry deserves at least that from him.


End file.
